So what I'm hearing is that the next time I'm in the mood for sex and my boyfriend isn't all I have to do is shine a flashlight in his eyes for a while, yes? THANK YOU, SCIENCE.

Okay, fine, maybe not.

So, what led researchers at the University of Sienna to start accosting innocent men with flagging sex drives with bright lights? It turns out that a men over 40 with low libidos (up to 25% of men) often report a change in their sex drive with the seasons.

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I guess a lightbox and increased libido is a better experiment than shoving them into ice bath and making their penises retract.

The study was conducted on 38 men diagnosed with low libidos. Can you imagine the small talk when all those guys met in the waiting room? I bet you there was officially no eye contact, maybe some half-hearted mumbling about football and/or the culinary stylings of Guy Fieri.

Half of the men spent half an hour every morning in a room with a light box, which can imitate the effects of the sun. At the end of the two weeks, they had higher testosterone levels and reported ("crowed" is probably a better word choice) that their sex lives were back on point!

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A researcher on the experiment explained the results: "In the northern hemisphere, the body's testosterone production naturally declines from November through April, and then rises steadily through the spring and summer with a peak in October. You see the effect of this in reproductive rates, with the month of June showing the highest rate of conception. The use of the light box really mimics what nature does. We believe that there may be several explanations to explain the underlying mechanism. For instance, light therapy inhibits the pineal gland in the centre of the brain and this may allow the production of more testosterone, and there are probably other hormonal effects."

This is only one small experiment, so don't blame us when the SAD lamp you bought your boyfriend doesn't do anything to whip him into a sexual frenzy.

Still, the research looks super promising! I wonder what the effects would be like on women with low libidos ... Funny how science is always less interested in that, isn't it?